4 ms·

>Small business don't need to exist, either. Nah, you know what doesn't need to exist? Giant multinational corporations beholden to nobody that do whatever the

>Small business don't need to exist, either. Nah, you know what doesn't need to exist? Giant multinational corporations beholden to nobody that do whatever they want with impunity around the world, polluting, crushing local economies, lobbying governments, tracking the population like cattle and selling their data for pennies to the highest bidder. Man the world sure would be better if they didn't exist. Small businesses though, they're the backbone of just about every small to midsize community around the world.

Ericson2314 6y ago
Hey, I'm with you that small business is much preferable to chaebol hell. But, I am also worried how much small business is still possible given modern technology and economies of scale. (But I am also aware that the fact that large business gets so much more government assistance, directly, or via financial markets and fractional reserve banking, means it is hard to tell what is really going on.) What I'm getting at is it may be that under capitalism consolidation is inevitable to a degree that small businesses would have to be completely propped up, in which we may consider other interventions such as workers on board or co-op requirements, UBI, etc. Basically, if no outcome one likes is "natural" (please excuse the capitalist realism), then one should look at the full spectrum of "unnatural" solutions, as opposed to just the status-quo-adjacent "let's just attract and subsidize immigrants to work 3x hard as the rest of us so we can instagram in their restaurants and bodegas".
- icelancer 6y ago
  >> But, I am also worried how much small business is still possible given modern technology and economies of scale. This is the opposite - the more modern technology, the more likely it is that small businesses can succeed. Barriers to entry are massively reduced on many fronts.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    "Barriers to entry" are far from being the only barriers to a business been sustainable.
Barrin92 6y ago
>Nah, you know what doesn't need to exist? Giant multinational corporations beholden to nobody that do whatever they want with impunity around the world, polluting, crushing local economies, lobbying governments, tracking the population like cattle and selling their data for pennies to the highest bidder. Giant corporations generally pay better and invest more into their workforce than small business, that's why developed economies, with high levels of organisation, rely on larger firms. The romanticism of small-business is extremely misplaced. Small business is unproductive, precarious, and as can be seen in this pandemic fragile to external shocks, offering virtually no security to their workforce. Large firms, ideally with high levels of unionisation (see France or Denmark), can absorb these shocks because unlike small business they're not scraping by from one month to the next. And they very much are accountable to society at large, that's why they need to hire lobbyists in the first place, because they're usually subject to regulation. It's small business that is effectively unmanagable.
- grawprog 6y ago
  >Giant corporations generally pay better and invest more into their workforce than small business, that's why developed economies, with high levels of organisation, rely on larger firms. In my experience, this is entirely not true. The only places i've ever gotten fair wages, been treated like a valuable employee, received regular raises were businesses with between 10-20 employees. >The romanticism of small-business is extremely misplaced. Small business is unproductive, precarious, and as can be seen in this pandemic fragile to external shocks, offering virtually no security to their workforce The last place I worked before my current job had a workforce of 13-15 people at any given time. We were extremely organized and productive. We brought in anywhere from $30000-$50000/day for that company. The company's assets were well into the millions from the bank statements I seen. Our customers included people and businesses even hundreds of km away because of the quality of our work. Our work wasn't cheap either, even compared to our competitors, yet we regularly had so much business, we needed to turn down contracts and still constantly made money. All of my coworkers had been there for over a decade before I left. They all supported families and lived good lives off that job. We all genuinely cared about the success of that business and wanted everything we did there to reflect well on it. I have never felt that when working for any corporation other than when I'm forced to at mandatory 'pep meetings' or 'team building' bullshit they force you to participate in.
WalterBright 6y ago
Large businesses are the engines that drive the economy. Small businesses are the future big businesses. Countries have tried preventing big businesses before, and favoring small ones. It never worked out very well.
- specialist 6y ago
  "...engines that drive the economy." What metric are you using? Young small to medium sized businesses account for most of the job growth. Mature large businesses are better at rent seeking, tax avoidance, and wallowing in governmental largess.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    > Young small to medium sized businesses account for most of the job growth. Sure, but that isn't what is driving the economy. Look instead at the number of jobs, and contribution to the GDP. Look what happens to an area when big business leaves it.
spfzero 6y ago
And many large businesses started out as small businesses. They literally owe their existence to the small business they started out as.

Ericson2314 6y ago

Hey, I'm with you that small business is much preferable to chaebol hell. But, I am also worried how much small business is still possible given modern technology and economies of scale. (But I am also aware that the fact that large business gets so much more government assistance, directly, or via financial markets and fractional reserve banking, means it is hard to tell what is really going on.) What I'm getting at is it may be that under capitalism consolidation is inevitable to a degree that small businesses would have to be completely propped up, in which we may consider other interventions such as workers on board or co-op requirements, UBI, etc. Basically, if no outcome one likes is "natural" (please excuse the capitalist realism), then one should look at the full spectrum of "unnatural" solutions, as opposed to just the status-quo-adjacent "let's just attract and subsidize immigrants to work 3x hard as the rest of us so we can instagram in their restaurants and bodegas".

icelancer 6y ago
>> But, I am also worried how much small business is still possible given modern technology and economies of scale. This is the opposite - the more modern technology, the more likely it is that small businesses can succeed. Barriers to entry are massively reduced on many fronts.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  "Barriers to entry" are far from being the only barriers to a business been sustainable.

Barrin92 6y ago

>Nah, you know what doesn't need to exist? Giant multinational corporations beholden to nobody that do whatever they want with impunity around the world, polluting, crushing local economies, lobbying governments, tracking the population like cattle and selling their data for pennies to the highest bidder. Giant corporations generally pay better and invest more into their workforce than small business, that's why developed economies, with high levels of organisation, rely on larger firms. The romanticism of small-business is extremely misplaced. Small business is unproductive, precarious, and as can be seen in this pandemic fragile to external shocks, offering virtually no security to their workforce. Large firms, ideally with high levels of unionisation (see France or Denmark), can absorb these shocks because unlike small business they're not scraping by from one month to the next. And they very much are accountable to society at large, that's why they need to hire lobbyists in the first place, because they're usually subject to regulation. It's small business that is effectively unmanagable.

grawprog 6y ago
>Giant corporations generally pay better and invest more into their workforce than small business, that's why developed economies, with high levels of organisation, rely on larger firms. In my experience, this is entirely not true. The only places i've ever gotten fair wages, been treated like a valuable employee, received regular raises were businesses with between 10-20 employees. >The romanticism of small-business is extremely misplaced. Small business is unproductive, precarious, and as can be seen in this pandemic fragile to external shocks, offering virtually no security to their workforce The last place I worked before my current job had a workforce of 13-15 people at any given time. We were extremely organized and productive. We brought in anywhere from $30000-$50000/day for that company. The company's assets were well into the millions from the bank statements I seen. Our customers included people and businesses even hundreds of km away because of the quality of our work. Our work wasn't cheap either, even compared to our competitors, yet we regularly had so much business, we needed to turn down contracts and still constantly made money. All of my coworkers had been there for over a decade before I left. They all supported families and lived good lives off that job. We all genuinely cared about the success of that business and wanted everything we did there to reflect well on it. I have never felt that when working for any corporation other than when I'm forced to at mandatory 'pep meetings' or 'team building' bullshit they force you to participate in.

WalterBright 6y ago

Large businesses are the engines that drive the economy. Small businesses are the future big businesses. Countries have tried preventing big businesses before, and favoring small ones. It never worked out very well.

specialist 6y ago
"...engines that drive the economy." What metric are you using? Young small to medium sized businesses account for most of the job growth. Mature large businesses are better at rent seeking, tax avoidance, and wallowing in governmental largess.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  > Young small to medium sized businesses account for most of the job growth. Sure, but that isn't what is driving the economy. Look instead at the number of jobs, and contribution to the GDP. Look what happens to an area when big business leaves it.

spfzero 6y ago

And many large businesses started out as small businesses. They literally owe their existence to the small business they started out as.